


chasing butterflies

by mekii



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Boys Being Boys, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, Male Friendship, Memory Loss, Nostalgia, Platonic Relationships, x1 going on an epic quest yasss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekii/pseuds/mekii
Summary: Eleven boys wake up in an unfamiliar apartment and realize they forgot the past five years. B, the man behind their kidnapping, forces them to go on missions together to get their memories back.(In which the eleven boys who made X1 remember who they were, accept who they are and choose who they will be.)
Relationships: Cha Junho & Everyone, Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun & Everyone, Han Seungwoo & Everyone, Kang Minhee & Everyone, Kim Wooseok | Wooshin & Everyone, Kim Yohan & Everyone, Lee Eunsang & Everyone, Lee Hangyul & Everyone, Nam Dohyon & Everyone, Son Dongpyo & Everyone, Song Hyeongjun & Everyone
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	1. un

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astronaut (avioxe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avioxe/gifts).



> nana!! thank you for giving me x1, i love them so much and i honestly can't imagine not knowing cho seungyoun (his songs are amazing, i love his voice and i made a lot of friends thanks to him) <3 it's funny how i got one more ult because you left a comment about x1 on a wanna one fic... maybe ongniel still deserves rights (i really should update it soon, urgh). anyway yes produce family slays <3 thanks again, yes they disbanded and yes that hurt me a lot (still hurts tbh) but what they gave me for the few months we got still made it worth it <3
> 
> so. this story goes to you because it's my Big X1 ProjectTM and i wouldn't be a fan without you (maybe? idk. whatever. not as soon, for sure)
> 
> hope you'll like this fic (even if i already told you the end rip)

Seungyoun wants to go home.

It all starts when he opens his eyes and sees absolutely nothing that belongs in his apartment. The poster on the wall, the window, the guy staring at him from the other bed, nothing in this room seems familiar. Even with the door closed, he can hear some people yelling and he can’t recognize any of the voices. When he throws his blanket—no, not his, _the_ blanket—to the floor, he blinks at the pajamas pants he’s wearing even though he doesn’t remember buying them. He’s not really sure who’s in front of him, but maybe he knows something. Seungyoun just hopes he’s not the one behind this.

“Uh. Hi? What’s going on?”

His brain is way too tired to panic about waking up with a stranger in the room he slept in. No, he’ll focus on being completely lost and _then_ he’ll worry about the guy.

“I wish I knew,” the guy replies. “You never saw this room either, right?”

He shakes his head and the guy looks a bit less tense now that he knows Seungyoun isn’t responsible for whatever happened to them. For some reason, his presence doesn’t make Seungyoun nervous, not at all, like something in his brain is screaming at him that he’s harmless. With arms like that, Seungyoun doubts he really is, but the guy’s eyes have a softness under the layers of stress and panic.

“The voices,” half asleep, Seungyoun struggles with words, “you know them? You left the room?”

“No, they woke me up and I didn’t recognize them so I stayed here… I’m Hangyul, by the way.”

The name doesn’t ring a bell.

“I’m Seungyoun. Are you an idol too? Maybe that’s why we’re here.”

Hangyul frowns. “Not really. I went on The Unit and I tried to debut, but our group didn’t do well… Also, please don’t get offended, but you’re an idol? I never saw you before.”

Well, Seungyoun can’t really get offended since it’s understandable he never heard of UNIQ, but it still hurts. With how quickly Hangyul apologizes, it’s clear he did an awful job at hiding his reaction.

“Okay, we don’t know each other, we have no idea why we’re here, but we can work together, right? We’ll probably have a bigger chance to get out of here if we’re not on our own,” Seungyoun offers.

He doesn’t want to be alone, not in a place he doesn’t know. Still not fully woken up, everything is a bit blurry and he guesses it’s the only thing stopping him from panicking. That, and the odd warmth in his chest he feels when he looks at the decoration in the room, like it means something to him. Weird. He doesn’t miss the way Hangyul’s eyes look softer when he looks at him.

They hear a crash and a new voice. Hangyul’s face gets three shades paler.

“Shit, that really sounded like Dohyon,” he says, probably to himself, as he gets up and almost trips on a bag—the kind you bring on a trip—as he runs to the door.

Seungyoun jumps out of bed to stop him. They don’t know what’s outside, but he knows he can’t spend the rest of his life in the room. Also, he really doesn’t want to be left alone right now, and Hangyul—even though he literally just met him—is the only thing that isn’t totally new to him. If he’s left alone with his thoughts, he’s sure he’ll have a panic attack. Moving will probably help him not think too much about how he was kidnapped and put in a room with a stranger.

“Wait! I’m coming with you, let me just get dress—”

“I can’t wait, Dohyon is a kid, I can’t leave him with strangers!”

Seungyoun’s hands refuse to leave Hangyul’s arm, but they’re tiny and can’t do much against his strength.

“Please, I can’t be alone here!”

Hangyul manages to get his hands off his arm, looks at his eyes and stops for a second, probably worried by the fear in them. With a sigh, he throws a shirt at him and opens the door. He doesn’t leave until Seungyoun has the shirt on though, so Seungyoun decides he’ll die for him.

(Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but he’s really glad he doesn’t have to stay alone. He hates being alone. Cho Seungyoun was made for friends, hugs and loud laughs, not silence and emptiness.)

He’s glad Hangyul didn’t leave without him because the mess outside the room would have him questioning his sanity if he didn’t know someone else sees it too.

“What the fuck.”

Two men are arguing with an enthusiasm that makes it seem like they’re trying to decide who between them can scream the loudest. Meanwhile, five boys are sitting on the floor and playing Mario Kart with two other boys waiting for their turn.

One of the boys looks at them and smiles when he sees Hangyul. That’s probably Dohyon.

“Hyung, what are you doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he answers, eyes still on the two men. “What’s going on?”

Dohyon stands up and Seungyoun realizes he’s taller than him. With how Hangyul talked about him, he expected him to look a bit… he doesn’t really know, maybe a bit more like a baby. He looks young, but not like a kid.

“Wow, you’re kinda small,” Dohyon says, frowning like he’s not sure he’s talking to the right person.

Hangyul looks as surprised as him. “Dohyon, since when are you so tall? Why do you look so… different?”

“I woke up like this!” Dohyon replies, like he’s defending himself. “What do you mean, different? I’m literally the same!”

“It’s not my fault you look older!” Hangyul seems to realize he’s starting to sound a bit rude. “Look, I’m sorry for talking to you like that, it’s just… weird.”

Standing there in silence makes Seungyoun feel awkward, so he looks around him. None of the Mario Kart players reminds him of someone—and none of them seems to care about Hangyul’s mental breakdown—but the others… Seungyoun can tell they’re older and he swears he saw the short one before. He has no doubt he’s taller than him, but his anger makes him intimidating. He looks away after a few seconds, not wanting to get caught staring, and sees a phone—Android, so definitely not his—on a table. It doesn’t have a password.

He doesn’t know what he expected when he decided to use it, but it definitely wasn’t _that_.

“I don’t know whose phone in this, but it’s telling me we’re in 2024. We’re still in 2019, right?”

Of course, no one believes it. It has to be a joke. It must be annoying to have your phone set to five years in the future, but there’s no other explanation for that.

“It still doesn’t tell me what the fuck is happening,” the short one—Wooseok, he said when Hangyul asked for his name—says, crossing his arms. “I need to go back to my group.”

The good thing about Seungyoun finding the phone is that it stopped the fight between Wooseok and Seungwoo. However, beside saving Hangyul’s ears, it wasn’t really helpful. Now, everyone is confused.

Hangyul is no exception, but really, can you blame him? He woke up in a room he didn’t recognize with a stranger next to his (in a creepy, totally not sexy way), realized nine other guys are in the same situation as them—one of them being his labelmate Dohyon who, for some reason, is taller and looks different from the kid he’s supposed to be—and now one of them finds a phone telling them they’re five years in the future. None of this makes sense!

Wait.

“What if we’re five years in the future?” Hangyul suggests, because his brain loves making him sound like an idiot.

He curses under his breath when everyone turns to look at him. Their eyes on him make him want to blush, but he can’t take back what he said, so… might as well say the whole thing.

“Dohyon looks older, he’s taller, the phone says we’re five years in the future,” he explains. “The date can be a prank, though I don’t know why trainees would be on a show with idols, but how do you change someone’s body? Like, I know makeup can be used for the face, but you can’t get taller…”

One of the Mario Kart boys raises his hand, looking at another player. “Well, I thought maybe it was just me, but… Hyeongjun, you look different too.”

“That’s weird coming from you, Minhee-Suddenly-Not-So-Mini.”

“You noticed something was wrong but you didn’t say anything? That’s suspicious,” Wooseok says, glaring at them (but he’s glaring at everyone right now so Hangyul hopes they won’t take it too personally, he understands how lost he feels).

Minhee shrugs, telling them he was about to talk to his friend about it, but then someone started a game of Mario Kart and it was a nice one. Hangyul knows he’s not the brain behind their kidnapping to the future, which leaves eight suspects.

Wooseok doesn’t share his optimism. “So you’re saying a stranger asked you to play Mario Kart with him and five other random guys and you accepted? I find that hard to believe.”

“It was _four_ other random guys, I know Hyeongjun.”

Wooseok looks like he wants to kill someone or find a corner to get on the floor and cry. Hangyul hopes he won’t choose the last option; he really doesn’t know how to comfort strangers in tears.

“This isn’t helping,” Seungwoo stops them. “I think none of us knows why we’re here. The only thing we have in common is the kpop industry and some of us are still trainees, so I doubt it has something to do with us being idols.”

“Also, no one really cares about UNIQ anymore.” Seungyoun’s laugh is bitter and forced, like he knows he can only laugh or cry about it, and Hangyul hates it, feels like he should do something about it.

To stop himself from hugging a guy he met half an hour ago, Hangyul looks at the others. So far, he knows Hyeongjun, Minhee, Wooseok, Seungwoo and Dohyon. Hyeongjun and Minhee are the same age and under Starship, Seungwoo is VICTON’s leader and Wooseok is in UP10TION. Judging by Seungyoun’s reaction, it’s not the first time he sees them, but they never really interacted enough to create something that would explain their kidnapping. Also, even if there was something between them, it wouldn’t explain why trainees are there too.

Then, he sees _it_. _It_ , the calendar on the wall. August 2024.

But it’s impossible, 2019 just started. He’s supposed to go on Produce x 101 with Dohyon. He’s supposed to get a chance to debut, to stand under the spotlights, to have people cheering for him and not the idol he works with. What happened?

“Hyung,” he hears Dohyon says, a safety net in the abyss of stress and worries he’s falling in. “Hyung, you need to breathe.”

“2024, we’re really in 2024. We’re trapped in an apartment with nine strangers and stuck more than five years in the future.”

The more he thinks about it, the harder it becomes to breathe. He can see Dohyon isn’t doing much better, but he can’t move, can’t hug his little brother. Even Minhee seems to be affected by his panic and the kids look about to cry despite Seungyoun and Seungwoo trying their best to calm them (with shaky voices, it’s not that helpful).

Then, everything stops, like someone pressed a button and Hangyul’s negative emotions left him. It feels weird, like he’s empty, but confusion and surprise fill that hole a few seconds later. None of them was expecting this, but Dohyon seems to take it worse than the others and would have fallen without Hangyul’s arm that reaches out for him the second he sees his eyes close.

“Okay, I know you felt it too,” Minhee starts, arms wrapping around himself. “I don’t like it. I want my mom.”

Hyeongjun hugs him, tears in his eyes, and the five oldest men look at each other with the same panicked expression. They can’t let the babies cry, they can’t…

(Wait, the babies? They’re all adults, except for Dohyon. And why does Hangyul care so much?)

“Good morning.”

This voice is new, covered by a filter that makes it awfully similar to Dark Vador’s. It’s creepy as hell, but Hangyul doubts he can feel any more surprised.

“Holy shit, there’s a guy on our wall!”

“That’s a screen, Dohyon, but thanks for getting their attention. I’m B, the one you’d probably call your kidnapper since you forgot what happened last night… and the five years before that.”

“That’s your name? We got kidnapped and forgot the past five years because of a dude named after an insect??”

A fucking insect. Hangyul will never eat or drink anything wth honey ever again.

“No, the letter. This doesn’t matter, let’s get down to business, shall we? Without my help, the chance you’ll get those memories back is extremely slim, and I’m kind enough to offer it to you. However, to win it, you must win a little challenge.”

“And what is it?” Seungwoo asks, stepping in front of the others.

The guy’s face is covered (Hangyul isn’t even sure it’s a guy) by a blue mask and a grey hoodie, but Hangyul just knows he’s smiling. A little grin, arrogant and annoying.

“You have these nine things. Choose the right one and I’ll help you in your quest. You have nine minutes.”

The screen goes black, separated into nine rectangles, each one with a different thing. A robotic voice (more feminine) starts a countdown.

Dongpyo is the first one to break the silence.

“I’m calling him ‘Bitch’ and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Peach, notebook, grey socks, pizza, unicorn, honey, butterfly, trophy and… is that a sword? What are we supposed to do with that, there isn’t any logic!”

Hangyul is already considering giving up when Seungyoun gets closer to the screen. He stares at it for a few seconds, then nods.

“Yes, that’s the thing, there’s no logic. I guess it’s all luck and feelings. I vote unicorn out.”

“Why?”

Seungyoun doesn’t even hesitate: “It’s too obvious I’d choose it. The answer probably represents all of us.”

“I… I was about to say we should choose the honey,” Wooseok says, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

Hangyul sees Dohyon frown, confused, but doesn’t say anything. Their voices are empty, he feels like he shouldn’t remind them of what they were taken away from.

“Too much food, I don’t like it. Maybe the answer is one of them?” Minhee suggests.

“What if the answer is the weirdest thing, the one out of place? They’re all weird, but the only weapon is a sword.”

“How does a sword represent us?”

“Edgy.”

“That’s a no from me.”

Hangyul shares a look with Dohyon, both boys realizing they’ll probably never get out of this. The kids keep talking and suggest almost everything, but not a single one seems to make sense.

Seungwoo frowns.

“I know we just met… well, maybe not, but we don’t remember each other so it’s pretty much the same–”

“Just say it,” Wooseok sighs, unable to keep watching Seungwoo dig his own grave.

“Okay, well, I know you guys don’t know me anymore, but can you trust me with this?”

“Yes.”

Dongpyo looks as surprised as the others, like he didn’t think before answering before Seungwoo could even close his mouth.

“I don’t think we have an idea, so you might as well go for it. Like I said, it’s probably all about feelings, the one you think is right. The guy never asked for an explanation, right?”

The kids agree one by one. Yohan follows them. Hangyul… Hangyul looks at Dohyon, searches an answer in Seungyoun’s eyes, thinks about it for maybe two seconds and sighs.

“Yes, go for it.”

They all turn towards Wooseok. The young man has his arms wrapped around himself and is biting his lips, so hard Hangyul is scared they’ll start bleeding. The countdown gets closer to zero, they don’t have much time to make a decision that will either help them or ruin them, they’re strangers, they don’t know what’s going on… the pressure is suffocating and he can’t blame him for being so stressed, so worried. Something in him aches at the sight of a scared Wooseok, but he ignores it. For now, they don’t know each other, he doesn’t know him. He needs to think about himself and Dohyon before anyone else.

He can see Wooseok’s eyes turning blank as he gives up.

“Okay.”

“The butterfly.”

That’s it. No explanation, no speech, nothing formal or dramatic. Just two words. Just two words that could leave them trapped them forever or guide them to their memories.

The countdown disappears and Hangyul swears his heart will not survive the day if the man doesn’t announce the outcome of their answer soon.

“Right answers bring rewards, wrong answers bring punishments. Congratulations, boys, here’s your first reward!”

And everything turns black.

“It’s starting! Is everyone ready?”

Seungyoun turns his head to smile at Seungwoo. They’re all wearing black uniforms and mics, their hair is done, Junho keeps telling Eunsang to stop biting his lips before he ruins his makeup.

“Don’t worry hyung, it’ll be fine. We’re ready!”

Seungwoo does a mini speech to comfort the kids and give them the confident boost they need, like he’s in charge of them. It makes sense: even without any memory of him, his warm aura made the others want to trust him from the second they saw him.

Then, he says something and no sound comes out, a flash of blue light covering his mouth. It’s exactly like censoring. What are they doing there? What’s going on?

 _We’re in a memory_ , Seungyoun realizes.

Seungyoun can’t control his body, can only follow what past him did a few years ago… or was it a few months? Weeks? When was this?

The black wall in front of him makes way for the group, but the memory changes before he can see what’s on the other side.

Music is playing. Dohyon is dancing to a choreography he doesn’t remember learning. Being a puppet is scary, yet a part of him feels like he has wings, like it’s the best thing he ever did. Everything around them is blue, like the universe is made of nothing but them and the black stage they’re performing on. For some reason, Seungyoun’s proud smile when he looks at him makes him want to spread wings he doesn’t have and fly.

“We’re having fun tonight,” he says without thinking about it, but he knows he means it.

Whatever is going on, whatever will happen, they’re having fun.

Minhee can’t stop smiling at exactly nothing in front of him and waves his hands like he’s greeting people that aren’t there. It should be creepy, but, for some reason, he feels loved and loving, giving and getting something in return. Everything is going too fast, faster than Seungyoun running across the stage with his pink shirt that makes him hard to miss. There’s a lot of colours around him and it’s slowly becoming too much. Trapped in his own body without knowing how to get out, he’s starting to suffocate without really, physically doing it, and it only makes it worse.

Then, his eyes find Junho’s, Eunsang’s, Dongpyo’s, Hyeongjun’s. His eyes find their smiles, his eyes find Hyeongjun’s cute jumps. He’s not alone. He’s with his friends… friends. Are they his friends? He doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t think he knows anything about any of them except for Hyeongjun, but they make him feel safe.

Maybe they’re his friends then.

Wooseok feels a hand on his chin. Seungyoun looks at him in the eyes, eyes that Wooseok rolls because _what the fuck Youn_. There’s that playful sparkle in Seungyoun’s eyes that he shouldn’t be able to recognize so easily.

Wooseok lets him turn his head, rolls his eyes then acts like nothing happened. It’s exactly the kind of things Seungyoun does, nothing surprising about that.

Nothing except the familiarity, the thought that he’s used to this behaviour, to a supposedly pure stranger’s habits.

The lights are for him. The stage is for him.

Hangyul walks in front of the others and dances as a _center_. A center. Not a backup dancer, someone whose name doesn’t matter for the audience. A center. It’s what he was searching for, what he could feel on his fingertips without ever getting close enough to grab it. A center.

He’s part of something, something under the lights and not in other people’s shadow, and it feels amazing.

It feels even better when he looks at Yohan, who smiles at him and mouths “you made it” with eyes that show he never doubted he would. When he turns his head, Dohyon’s eyes aren’t on him, but the view warms his heart. He made it, and he did it with his little brother.

 _They’re here for me_ , he thinks, without seeing any audience as “they”, but the pride in his chest is the special one that only comes when he stands on stage.

This time, when he goes to the back, his smile doesn’t leave.

Yohan grabs Wooseok’s hand and reaches for Hyeongjun’s. Their hands are so sweaty it’s impossible to ignore and he’d find it disgusting if he didn’t know his were as bad as theirs. It’s okay, he doesn’t mind it that much. The discomfort is nothing compared to the pride that would make him breathless if he wasn’t already.

He’s prouder than he’s ever been, prouder than when he finally got his first black belt, prouder than when he won his first taekwondo award, prouder than when he won p… what. What did he win? He can’t remember, the thought slipped away so suddenly and he has no idea what it was supposed to mean. He knows for sure it’s not something about taekwondo, but why? Isn’t taekwondo his passion?

Right, what is he doing on this stage? Who are these people? _What’s going on?_

Everything is new and familiar, stressful and comforting. He belongs there, he belongs with them, but why and since when, he can’t tell.

Past Yohan (because that’s what it is, right? He’s in a flashback, stuck in the body of the Yohan he was when it happened) doesn’t worry about these things. He raises his arms and bows. Yohan can only follow, feeling his eyes close to stop tears for falling.

When he wakes up, he can’t stop them.

Everyone comes back from that place with a gasp and cheeks full of tears.

Feeling dizzy, Hangyul has to close his eyes again and rests his head against the floor. He doesn’t remember falling, but at this point, he doesn’t question it much. He can hear Dohyon choking on his sobs and it’s the wakeup call he needs. He wipes his cheeks with his sleeve, crawls (he’s not that far away and the room still refuses to stay still) to his little brother and hugs him. Dohyon hides his face against his neck and cries harder.

He gets it. Really. The feeling of missing something is almost suffocating and Dohyon is so young, so sensible…

“Was it necessary.”

“What?”

He looks at the masked man. He hates him, hates him so much.

“Giving us some memories back like that. Those were memories, right? Did you really have to hit us like that? To send us there without a warning?”

The man raises his arms and Hangyul bets he looks offended under his ugly mask.

“Hey, magic is hard, I can’t control anything! Besides, these memories would have hurt you no matter what. The part of you that didn’t forget still misses these days.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Wooseok almost growls, looking way too scary for someone sprawled on the floor.

Hangyul feels Dohyon wipe his nose on his shirt, one of his favourites, and decides he’ll punch B if he ever meets him. Dohyon is a child (well, even if his body grew up, he’s back to being the kid he was before these five years), why does he have to suffer like that?

“I’m sorry about how violent the flashbacks will be,” the man says and dares sounding sincerely apologetic, “but there’s nothing I can do about that. They only hurt because of your feelings and even magic can’t control those.”

Seungwoo is trying to help the kids calm down. Wooseok is still on the floor. Yohan hasn’t moved an inch, staring at the ceiling with tears rolling down like a damn waterfall. Seungyoun is curled up against the wall, trying to remember how to breathe because all he can remember for now is what a heartbreak feels like.

Really, it’s a mess and Hangyul is trying really hard not to cry. He wants to go home.

He does his best to keep the tears in, because he knows he’s not alone. They all want to go home.


	4. update on hiatus + commissions

Hi!

I’m really sorry for not updating for so long. I’m in quarantine since March and I have to admit it’s affecting my motivation and inspiration more than I thought it would… I’m not abandoning any of my works, I still have ideas for all of them and I want to finish them but right now it’s really hard to be productive, especially since I’m in college now and “the pandemic we’re going through is ruining my mental health which affects my motivation and concentration” isn’t an excuse the teachers accept. Thanks to the holidays, I’m free now and maybe Christmas’ magic will let me update lol. Posting new works is easier, but updating is hard and I don’t know how to fix that.

This probably doesn’t look good after not updating for months, but I opened a Ko-Fi page. I won’t ask y’all to pay me for an update but if you want me to write something for you, I can do that! It’ll be my priority though, so please be understanding if updates take even longer while I’m writing a commission. For now, I’m asking for $3/1k words (in USD) and any extra if I’m motivated and/or inspired will be free (aka if you ask for 2k words and I write 3k, I won’t ask for an extra $3). I can write about a lot of kpop artists, mangas, etc, just ask me! We moved out this summer so I had to quit my job and I can’t find a new one because of the Covid restrictions. I’m sorry for asking money after being inactive for so long, I just really don’t know what to do…

Sorry for giving such a disappointing update. I’ll try to post a new chapter as soon as possible, but I can’t promise anything and I’m really sorry about that.

if you want a fic: comment here or dm me on twitter (@mekikyu)!

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment, i'd love to hear your thoughts on this story!
> 
> twitter/curiouscat: @mekimingyu


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